The U.S. Senate passed a bill Monday to spend 150-billion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When asked if he was satisfied with the legislation, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said he won’t be satisfied until the war is over and the troops come home.
"As I told some high school kids that were visiting my office last week to demonstrate against the war, I said, ‘I’m just like Franklin Roosevelt prior to World War Two.’ I hate war and he hated war, but he got into war because Pearl Harbor was attacked," Grassley says, "we got into war because of September the 11th." Senate Democrats offered a bill Monday that would force President Bush to give Congress a troop pull-out plan, but the legislation failed.
Grassley, a Republican, says his party is no more in favor of the war than the Democrats. Grassley says: "We want to get this war over, get our troops home and not spend this kind of money, but on the other hand, the Constitutional responsibility of the federal government is to defend our country and tackle the enemy." As for the 150-billion dollar spending plan approved Monday, Grassley says Congress won’t cut off the American troops abroad.
Grassley says: "I’m committed to giving our men and women whatever it takes to get the job done and we shouldn’t put them in harm’s way. Exactly what that number is right now, that’s what the Pentagon says it should be. That’s what they’re asking for."
A bill going before the U.S. House today would require Bush to submit a plan for pulling troops out of Iraq, but its passage is considered unlikely. Senate Democrats had pushed a different version of the bill that ordered troops home this fall but it failed after not getting sufficient support from Republicans.